Trussben

As my work is progressing I'm continually seeing flaws in the hull or with the wood filler.  Sanded another half dozen spots just this morning.  The practicum suggested going ahead and painting the entire hull, but I'm thinking that it may be best to wait until most of the stern and bow are completed.  I've already noticed some scratches with just my handling.
 
After 4 or 5 rebuilds to the galleries I feel pretty good about the roughed in portions.  Used a scroll saw for the rough shapes, followed by a disc sander, and finally a dremel for the roof.  The galleries stuck out a little beyond the transom so I had to redo the planking on it a couple times.  Really suggest waiting on planking the transom and perhaps counter until the galleries are roughed in.
 
Decided to begin some painting and add the white stripe.
 


 
Only problem was that I forgot to paint the lower gun ports first.  So these pics show where I'm masking them off for painting.  Was pretty concerned about the fine line tape pulling off the white acrylic, but quickly found out that its all about the direction of the pull once you're removing the tape.
 


 
Once that was completed I could mask off the top and bottom of the gun ports and paint the black areas both above the ports and down to the wales.
 

Sorry for the slow response...I'm relearning the MSW interface and it seems as if whenever I learn something else there are 3 more aspects that I need to learn, too.
 
Thanks for all of the likes!
 
Mark, Ryland, and Glenn thanks for looking in.  It's really great to reconnect with friends!  I've been building for several weeks and with summer here in AZ we'll have a few more months of extreme weather so that should afford me some quality build time.  Really appreciate the kind words but all of you have created a great learning base and some high standards to aspire to.
 
Jeff and Glenn,  thanks for the comments on the scraper.  I'll search for Chuck's tutorial whenever I have a moment...great idea.   My issue was in just cutting / shaping the metal scraper.   What tool did you use?  As I said, a dremel and thin cut-off blade exploded a couple times so I gave up.  Do have a variable speed dremel now.

Hull Planking
I finished planking the hull a few weeks ago.  Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures along the way.  I used nearly all 1/6x1/8 planks except for a few wider ones towards the bottom and at the stern.
A few lessons learned...
When I did the initial construction and faring of the bulkheads, I could have done a better job as there were some dips where I needed to add some supplemental strips of 1/32 material along the way. If I were doing this build over again, I would add extra blocks both fore and aft (between A and B, and between Q and R) because that is where there is a significant amount of bend Not sure if the counter and stern filler blocks are shaped correctly on the plans or perhaps it was just me.  Seems like everyone really struggles with planking the stern.  On a redo I think I would perhaps make the stern block with a little less severe bend and at least check it out with some planks before winding up that portion of the build.  Do a better job of laying out the planking belts.  In my case I didn't fully understand some of the issues and should have looked more closely at some of the other builds on MSW.  I found myself redoing some of the belts part way through the planking simply because I was a newbie. Hold off planking the transom and counter until after the galleries are completed.  I needed to redo this section because the galleries stuck out too much.  Hunt mentions this but doesn't give any details and I think he had to redo that section as well. If you can check the thickness of the planking stock so that most of the planks are the same thickness this will help a lot when you go to sand everything.  Towards the end I milled some of my own planks from the same sheet of stock and I was amazed at how nice they came out. If a plank doesn't fit, then don't force it by using glue.  Instead reshape it.  Experienced builders know this. If a plank dips or doesn't look right, fix it before you go on.  Everyone says that they will fix the problem with wood putty, but that is really the wrong approach and most of us are disappointed with the results of using wood putty. Found that diluting wood filler before applying and then sanding with 240X or finer works better.  Be really gentle and try to fair out any edges from the wood filler. All of these are pretty well known concepts to the experienced builder, but perhaps they will be helpful to a newbie on this build.
 
Here are some pics of the hull after planking.  Will add some more pics as soon as I work on some details of rotation and editing pics.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

First some background...  I started this build in 2004 using Bob Hunt's practicum so my build will continue to use the practicum.  About 6 months into the build Bob was looking for someone to mill wood for his new kit business and that was the start of HobbyMill.  So the kit has laid idle for 17 years while I did HobbyMill and eventually relocated to Phoenix from Cincinnati.
 
This is also my first build so I'm making all of the typical mistakes of a newbie.   Over the years I've had the privilege to observe so many great builds and learn from the commentary on this site so I was a little intimidated to post a log.  However, after spending some time lurking here recently and the wealth of information that I have received, I decided to try to give something back...even if its just all of the mistakes that I'm making.
 
Lessons Learned:
Modeling is a lot harder than milling wood Don't wait 17 years between steps in a build  
Once I figure out how to upload some pics, I'll start my build.  Unfortunately I must have deleted some of my early pics from 2004 so we'll start from where we are today.
 
Jeff  

The good news is I'm still alive... 
sol I finished the planking of the hull, I guess it's gonna have to do, as I will probably die of old age before I get it the way I truly want it. 
 

This was a progress photo

planking the last side

A finished shot, rubbed on a coat of poly to try and keep it clean

and this shot shows why Chuck suggested I sand a little more, Obviously it was not enough, The transitions for a smooth Hull are quite a challenge
and I'm guessing doom a lot of models to the burn barrel, 

I truly struggled with this end of the hull, after numerous attempts I just threw in the towel, I did however recognize that the model looked pretty 
good when sitting in the cradles....I also noticed that a lot of these areas are going to disappear behind details as they are added. So I'll quit trying 
to reason why this is OK and just admit that it is a mediocre attempt.  

To conclude...As they say in the Opera, its not over till the fat lady sings, and she is just starting to hum... till next time.

Hey Ron,
 
Thats the view from the top of Mt Evans, CO. Elevation 14’130ft and the highest place in NA that you can drive to, Breathtaking - Litterally.

Hey Ron,
 
Thats the view from the top of Mt Evans, CO. Elevation 14’130ft and the highest place in NA that you can drive to, Breathtaking - Litterally.

Great Vacation, any guesses where?
 

Hey Ron,
 
Thats the view from the top of Mt Evans, CO. Elevation 14’130ft and the highest place in NA that you can drive to, Breathtaking - Litterally.

Hey Ron,
 
Thats the view from the top of Mt Evans, CO. Elevation 14’130ft and the highest place in NA that you can drive to, Breathtaking - Litterally.

Hey Ron,
 
Thats the view from the top of Mt Evans, CO. Elevation 14’130ft and the highest place in NA that you can drive to, Breathtaking - Litterally.

Great Vacation, any guesses where?
 

Hey Jeff,
 
you got a build at the moment? Or is Naiad in the distance?

It’s called a frame reveal, used to simulate what the real ships framing would look like when building a POB model.

Another belt of planking has been completed but Ive yet to even rough sand it so pardon the messy look, 2 more to go but vacation week comes first.
 
 

Hey Jeff,
 
Great to see you still around, Holly is great that I got off you, wish I could get some more of that really pink Swiss pear though, last piece of pear I bought is very nice with straight grain, but it’s not pink at all.

Thanks Chuck/Mike and all the likes.
 
Here is the shadow box installed and spray painted flat black, I’m currently cutting the frames out of Swiss Pear sheet that I milled down to 11” thick, maybe get that done and this completed in the next few weeks.
 
ben
 

Stern framing completed and transom looks like everything is where it should be, I will now add the QG supports and begin installing the frame reveal shadow box.
 
ben

Thanks All,
 
After manipulation of the NMM plans in Autocad I have now also completed the design of the hull framing parts and where their joints will be.
I need to make a load of these and construct the shadow box, I’m not going to make actual chocked joints - just simulate them and highlight with black monofilament line treenails.
This could take a while.
 
ben

Great Vacation, any guesses where?
 

It’s called a frame reveal, used to simulate what the real ships framing would look like when building a POB model.

Nice planking Ben.

Another belt of planking has been completed but Ive yet to even rough sand it so pardon the messy look, 2 more to go but vacation week comes first.
 
 

Another belt of planking has been completed but Ive yet to even rough sand it so pardon the messy look, 2 more to go but vacation week comes first.
 
 

Just a Conny for now.  Lots of stuff, hopefully, in the future.